Compaq turns attention to CAD stations

After a successful blitz on the financial sector, Compaq UK's workstation division is turning its guns on CAD. The offensive starts this week where it is exhibiting at the ICAT (Integrating Computer-Aided Technology) show in Birmingham running today through Saturday.

New Dataquest figures put Compaq at number two in the workstation sector for the fourth calendar quarter of 1996, even though the company claims it only begun selling product on October 29. However, huge wins at BZW and Credit Suisse contributed heavily and Compaq admits that "about 98 per cent" of sales have gone to financial customers.

"We're obviously very pleased with how it's gone but most of the business has been heavily oriented towards the financial market," said Hugh Jenkins, enterprise group product manager.

"We've got a great platform for CAD and now we're going to push hard on work we haven't done for four or five years. It's a longer haul [than financial services] for us, but NT offers a great alternative and we have the channel and partnerships with software developers in place."

Jenkins also rubbished Dell's announcement last week that it plans to follow Compaq into the workstation market. "I don't think Dell are significant competition for us. They have no credibility in this sector. They don't have the technology, product, channels, investment or market share. It's all talk and idle boasting. Our competition is Sun, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Maybe Digital and Silicon Graphics."